


Broken Arrow

by SydneyLouWho



Category: Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: F/M, Gen, Vignettes, repost and rework from ff.net, this is dark shit, tw for actual suicide, tw for alcoholism, tw for attempted suicide, tw for brief talk of prostitution, tw for really everything, tw for talk of blood
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-07
Updated: 2016-11-07
Packaged: 2018-08-29 18:50:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,502
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8501287
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SydneyLouWho/pseuds/SydneyLouWho
Summary: The peacekeepers had trouble prying her cold hand from his.
 Vignettes of various victors at their lowest moments.  Please read the trigger warnings posted in the tags.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Um, so I really don't know what to say about this. I found this oneshot/ficlet from 2013 on my ffn account and decided it was salvageable with a bit of reworking. I don't know why I did it, since I'm supposed to be doing NaNo and this is in no way related, but here's a weird, dark THG fic (as if anyone asked for that).

_"when you shoot across the sky like a broken arrow_

_you fall off course,_

_yeah when you hit the ground_

_it's hard to get to heaven when you're born hellbound"_

-Broken Arrow by The Script

* * *

 

The lovers were side by side that night, the moon illuminating their pale faces.

They were found together, hanging by rope.  His death had preceded hers by hours, but she’d decided in the black of night that there was no life without him.  So she'd met him at the tree where they'd first kissed and strung herself up beside him.

She’d never had proof that he hadn’t committed the crimes for which he was set to be executed.  She hadn't needed any; she loved him.  She loved him more than she loved the feel of air pulled into her lungs.  Even if the blood of the baker’s daughter stained his hands, she loved him.

The peacekeepers had trouble prying her cold hand from his.

…

Silence hung in the air, threatening to suffocate the boy dressed in black. In a sea of dark fabric, there was little separating Haymitch from the rest, except the pain he felt.

It was a pain that gnawed at his flesh, scraped at his bones, taking the very life from his body.  And he wished the wounds were visible, so he could be taken to the infirmary and dosed on so much morphling that he'd forget he ever had a family at all.  Only a toxic dose could have that effect, he's sure, though he couldn't say that he would mind.

The true tragedy, he decided, was in feeling the pain of death, without having the privilege of dying.

He wished nothing more than for Astrid’s shoulder to cry on, for his tears to soak the shoulder of the old black dress he’d seen her wear more times than he’d care to count.  He’d loved her, and he’d let her end up purple and bloated in a wooden box alongside his mother and brother.

So he lets the tears slide down his cheeks, to the very dirt in which they’d soon be buried.

He’d worn this outfit many times, a simple black shirt tucked into black trousers, but this felt entirely different.  This time the clothes felt heavy on his shoulders, as if they were made of chain rather than cotton.

When the funeral ended and the town had dried their tears, Haymitch went home to an empty house, eerily silent. He wondered how many spirits lurked in the walls, waiting for him to join them.

The ghosts surrounded him; he could feel them breathing on his neck and slithering around him like serpents, preparing to choke him until the air was gone. They whispered to him with airy voices.

 _Your fault,_ they said. _You killed them._

They whispered for him to join them, said that he owed it to his family.  Their whispers turned to screams.

_You killed them.  You killed them.  You killed them._

He stumbled to the cabinet in the corner, where his father had stored his alcohol.  The door creaked with disuse as he opened it, creaked in protest, but Haymitch reached inside anyway, as though the bottles could bring his family home.  He'd never drunk in his life, not after watching his mother cover the bruises inflicted upon her by the substance.  But his mother is gone, and Haymitch would rather be angry than sad, so he pulled the first bottle he could find from the cabinet and drank like it was water.

The liquid was fire in his throat.  Perhaps if he kept fueling the fire, kept bringing the bottle to his lips, it would eventually burn him up.  Alcohol poisoning, they'd call it.  A crude death, not heroic or poetic.  A death of a monster; the death of Haymitch.

As the bottle drained, the pain dulled, even if only by a bit.  His brain was fuzzier in this state, his thoughts softer and less ready to attack.

He finally passed out with the bottle still in hand and, to his dismay, he woke in the morning. It hadn't been enough. Nothing he ever did was enough.  Not winning the Quarter Quell.  Not loving his family.

At least he'd found a temporary way to dull the pain.

…

Finnick couldn't do it anymore.  The feel of hungry hands against his skin haunted him in sleep and in waking, the sounds of their moaning echoing always in the spaces of his head.  And while he spent his time in the beds of monsters, the girl he loved was slowly slipping away.

It was all too much.

His bare feet felt numb against the cold marble of the balcony, so far from the ground and so close to the sky.

He was a boy of the water, but he wanted to fly.

The wind whipped through his hair, the cold sea air chilling him to the bone. The sea seemed to call him in the distance, but he was too far to hear the whispers of the crashing waves.  The sea was kind; it would beg him to stay.  He neared the edge slowly.

Finnick knew that if things were different, if he were the one in need, that Annie would never leave him like this, so selfishly.  But he wasn’t Annie.  If he kept living on, he would eventually shatter.  And he couldn’t risk slicing her with the shards that were left.

He listened to the waves slowly devouring the shore. He couldn't see them in the moonless night, but they were always there.  They had always been there, a comfort or a curse.  He’d contemplated letting the waves take him.  A fitting death for a boy of the sea.  But it was too slow, and the water would likely just pull him back to the surface. He wanted a fast end.  A quick impact, then nothing. Freedom.

He climbed over the railing, his hands and heels the only thing keeping him anchored to the world. He closed his eyes.

"Finnick! Finnick!" a frantic voice called from down below.

Annie Cresta, her nightgown billowing in the wind, was screaming his name. It was the first thing he'd heard her say since she'd won the games; she'd been silent even when the Capitol had threatened her life.

"Finnick, stop!  _Please_ stop!" she screamed, her breathing heavy from running across the sand from her house.

He couldn't defy her of course.  Not Annie, not ever.  So he let her angel voice pull him back over the railing.  And then he was on the beach, with Annie in his arms, letting his tears fall to the crook of her neck.

She didn’t need to speak again that night.  Neither did he.  He knew her thoughts and she knew his, and neither thought of death as they fell asleep entwined, lips to forehead, hands to waists.

They could heal together, as long as it would take.  He swore he’d never leave her again.

…

Johanna was supposed to be strong. Johanna was supposed to be a fighter. She'd won the games, but it felt like loss.

They'd given her a choice and she'd chosen wrong. She'd kept her virtue and lost her family.

It was a game to them, and one they'd always win.  A game of chess, they'd call it, but her side was glued to the board.  They’d murdered everyone she’d ever loved without a second thought or a drop of remorse, all because she wouldn’t spread her legs for them.

_Check._

Johanna was strong.  They'd manufactured her into a killer, but she would sooner take her own life than offer it to the Capitol.  

She held the blade vertically to her wrist.  There was power in her hands.  Control.  Freedom, even.  But it tasted like blood.  It was the kind of power the Capitol coveted.  The power to kill.

Johanna was just like them.  A killer of other, and of herself as well.

Drops of crimson and black bloomed in the knife’s wake and the tears fell, sobs shaking her body.

The knife clattered to the tile below.

She couldn't do it; she couldn't be like them, no matter what pain they caused her.  It would hurt them more if she was alive anyway, in the corner of the board, untouchable.  She wouldn't let the steel spill her blood, so she would turn herself to steel, no matter how long it would take.

Johanna refused to allow the word "checkmate" escape from their bloodstained lips.

…

The lovers stood in the light of a simulated sun, berries in hand. The berries stained their palms, like purple-red bruises.

 _Everything is so calm_ , he thought. With all of the other tributes dead, it was quiet, as though they were the only ones left in the world. 

It seemed right, what they planned to do. He didn't want to live without her. She couldn't bring herself to kill him.

They brought the berries to their lips.

A voice shattered the calm.

They could breathe again.


End file.
